During the 4th five year plan (1969-74) wheat production average was put at 17.28 lakh tonnes with the area under irrigation being 9.93 lakh hectares. The total area covered then was 14.61 lakh hectares.

The state agriculture department made all efforts to provide hybrid seeds. Some of the varieties developed by the Rajasthan Agriculture University are highly productive.

The state director of agriculture, Purushottam Agarwal said the new varieties are Raj 3777, PDW 215, CPAN 3004, GW 190, GW 173, DL 803 and UP 2328. PVW 343, which was developed last year, became quite popular. It has given a production of 45 quintals per hectares. The University has also developed the new varieties such as WH 147, HD 2329 and Raj 1482.

The department distributes mini-kits of the new seed varieties free of cost. Some of the wheat varieties are of high use in case of late sowings. In Kotah region, a well irrigated area, wheat crop is taken after the cotton and soyabean crops. No wheat is grown in the western region of the state where there is no irrigation facility.

Ganganagar, Kotah, Jaipur and some parts of eastern Rajasthan are the wheat growing areas of the state. Wheat covers one-third of the total rabi area in the state. Last year rabi crops covered an area of 70 lakh hectares.

Wheat crop needs five to six irrigations to mature. While irrigation by well is more common in the state, canal irrigation depends largely on monsoon. Farmers in Rajasthan prefer wheat instead of mustard as it is more remunerative to them. Mustard is grown if the rains fail as the crop requires less water.

Last year the department could distribute 17.50 lakh quintals of seed for the wheat sowings in the state as against 16.16 lakh quintals during 1996-97. Agarwal said Rajasthan contributed 6.69 lakh tonnes of wheat this year to the central pool and the price paid to the farmers was Rs 510 per quintal including Rs 55 per quintal as the bonus.